Comments on: Harry’s stuff-up

By: Craig Ranapia (Other Pundit)

Craig Ranapia (Other Pundit) — Tue, 29 Jul 2003 13:33:41 +0000

To get into the crude electoral poltics of it, why didn’t Harry resign instead of the ghastly performance before the Privileges Committee that was on One News Tonight? And what does it cost to get Sir Geoffrey (“call me God”) Palmer out of bed these days?

The man has a five figure majority – and I’ve not heard anyone seriously argue he’s in real danger of losing the seat in a by-election he’s eligible to contest. It is, however, a no-brainer that he would get a lot of positive media if he said, “OK, it might be a silly technicality but it’s still the law. A body of law, incidentally, that has helped give this country an enviable history of corruption-free elections. No legislator can ever hold himself to be above that law.”

An enterprising opposition MP might also like to point out that a couple of thousand people recently woke up to discover their residency applications weren’t worth the paper they were written on.

By: Jamie Simpson

Jamie Simpson — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 22:49:36 +0000

David, excellent website. Well-written pieces.

Cheers,

Jamie

By: David Farrar

David Farrar — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 22:42:22 +0000

My understanding is that it would not, but someone could take a case to court arguing the opposite.

Section 55 does state the seat becomes vacant upon the act of becoming a citizen of another country, but as far as I know there is no provision for votes accepted by Parliament to be later changed except by leave of the House.

By: pete

pete — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 22:34:17 +0000

Just a thought.
Should Dynhoven be vacated. Would that make his ‘yes’ vote on the prostitution reform bill null in void?

By: David Farrar

David Farrar — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 20:21:09 +0000

The debate as I see it isn’t whether the law is a sensible one (but note that Parliament left it in there last year when amending this clause indicating there is merit in having it) but whether Harry broke the law and if so should Parliament pass retrospective legislation.

I think retrospective legislation affecting the Electoral Act is not just the thin end of the wedge but a long way down the slippery slope also. The law has to apply equally to everyone.

Well my 2c worth again anyway.

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 20:19:24 +0000

Arguably, Harry’s application was not so much to gain foreign citizenship, but to to regain his Dutch citizenship to which he was always entitled. It is true that for a while, the Dutch frowned on dual citizenship, but their recent enactment will apparently have retrospective effect. I fail to see how his situation is any different to the number of other parliamentarians who variously hold British or Australian citizenship.

Good blog, by the way.